Tsunamis in Oakland

There is no one tsunami that will wash over this much of the city; it’s a composite of a bunch of different possible tsunamis. In general, Oakland is like the rest of the Bay in being quite well sheltered from the kind of tidal waves that struck Sumatra five years ago. The Golden Gate keeps out the worst of the water. But it’s conceivable that some waves could wash up to about the 10-foot elevation level, especially in the parts of town nearest to the ocean. For residents, the worst threat would be in farthest West Oakland and the Jack London Square area. It also looks like the Webster Tube might briefly flood at the Alameda entrance, but probably not enough to make the tunnel totally impassable. The bridges would be fine, of course.

The time to worry about this is whenever there is a great earthquake in Cascadia or coastal Alaska. By “great” I mean an event of magnitude 8 or larger. But a lot depends on the details, like exactly where the quake occurs. If it moves a lot of seafloor, that would spawn the biggest waves. Even then, we would have several hours’ warning. In sum, tsunamis are a minor worry for Oaklandersexcept for you living in boats.

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This entry was posted on 6 January 2010 at 6:55 pm and is filed under Oakland hazards. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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One Response to “Tsunamis in Oakland”

A tsunami from the magnitude 8.9 Sendai earthquake in Japan reached us this morning. See this shot of its arrival at Berkeley. Its effect would have been even smaller in Oakland, because we’re off to the side whereas Berkeley gets a straight shot in from the Golden Gate.